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Saturday, 16 July 2016

IT’S ENOUGH TO DRIVE YOU CRAZY IF YOU LET IT

I know it is the twenty-first century, but that doesn’t stop
me from buying a typewriter. My nephew recently bought a second-hand one – of course,
there are no new typewriters anymore – which reminded me of the one we had at
home, before computers overran it over twenty years ago. Looking at examples on
eBay, I wound up bidding on a grey and brown Litton Imperial Mercury, a grand
name for what used to be a very ordinary machine.

Once I make room for it, how useful will I be when using it?
The challenge will be not to make a mistake, and to resist throwing the paper
away to start again. If I slip on the wrong key, I should find a way of
justifying the mistake, and see where that takes me. Or, I could just let rip:

“The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog, and ran to
Currys to steal a food blender. He was arrested, and was made to speak the
alphabet in a loud, clear voice. ‘A’, the fox said, followed by ‘B,’ then ‘C.’
By ‘J,’ the fox broke. ‘All right, I confess! The kids wanted smoothies, but
they are so expensive to buy…’”

Anyway, buying a typewriter also means I can hear that
particular clacking of keys and metal rods, a background to life and industry,
that is just not heard anymore. This is not nostalgia, as I have grown up with
computers, just as vinyl records are mostly being sold to people that grew up
with CDs and MP3s. Old technology, if it works, does not have to be rendered obsolete
or dead.

I imagine receiving a letter typed on a typewriter will mean
more than one printed from a computer: there is still an element of craft on
the part of a writer, not as much as writing by hand, but enough of a change to
make a difference to the reader. Anyone receiving a letter from me will now
know what to expect.

From this, you might expect using a typewriter would give me
an ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response), the curious, dubious abbreviation
now given to the tingling in the back of your head or neck you get in response
to a sensory stimulus of some sort.

I only discovered a name has been given to this feeling when,
after researching the typewriter I just bought, I found YouTube videos
consisting solely of people typing letters, just for the viewer to sense the
sound, and the physical act, of the typing. I’m sure it won’t be so great if
you had the machine in front of you, engaged in a duel to harness the written
word to create a work of great meaning, all the while trying to spell properly.
For me, the feeling of release may only come when I stop using it.

Having said that, I am looking forward to getting started!

Meanwhile, the fox has been convicted of theft, and is
currently awaiting sentencing.